Perkins v. Rich
| Decision Date | 07 January 1982 |
| Parties | Jane H. PERKINS et al. 1 v. Paul J. RICH et al. 2 Bay State Federal Savings & Loan Association et al., 3 interveners. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Mark A. Michelson, Boston (Edward F. Fitzgerald, East Bridgewater, with him), for plaintiffs.
Frank L. Bridges, Boston, for Shawmut First County Bank, N.A., intervener.
James Levensohn, Boston, for Bay State Federal Sav. & Loan Assn.
Before HENNESSEY, C. J., and WILKINS, ABRAMS and LYNCH, JJ.
RESCRIPT.
This case is before us on further appellate review following an opinion of the Appeals Court affirming judgments of the Superior Court. Perkins v. Rich, --- Mass.App. ---, Mass.App.Ct.Adv.Sh. (1981) 270, 277, 415 N.E.2d 895. At issue is the validity of certain mortgages given to two banks by instruments executed by the defendant Rich, purportedly on behalf of the First Parish Unitarian Church of East Bridgewater (Church).
We need not repeat the facts recited in the opinion of the Appeals Court. We agree with the Appeals Court that the subsidiary facts found by the master show that the Church's parish committee in effect ratified the mortgage transactions. The parish committee should have conducted an investigation, and, if it had done so, it would have discovered the mortgages. The failure of the parish committee to act to disavow the mortgages, of whose existence the committee should have known, constituted a ratification of them.
Judgments of the Superior Court affirmed.
1 The other elected members and members ex officio of the parish committee of the First Parish Unitarian Church of East Bridgewater.
2 The Atty. Gen.
3 Shawmut First County Bank, N.A.
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